Lawn Boy Returns (8 page)

“Ah, yes, well …” I was studying the crank and wondering where to find instructions for making ice cream by hand. I’d noticed that the lakeside town up the road didn’t have a decent ice cream parlor.

I started to get that buzzy itch in the back of my head like when I first started the lawn business. Kenny and Allen could come up with us next summer, and if we could start a little stand near the town square …

19

I was fishing off the edge of the dock outside our cabin the day we were going to head back home. The sun had just come up and the lake was smooth and still.

“Far-out place you’ve got here.”

Arnold.

I turned and saw him standing at the top of the dock. Short and round and dressed in one of those awful outfits from way back when—bell-bottom pants and a sports coat with enormous lapels.

And easily one of the best things I’ve ever seen in my whole entire life.

He smiled and kind of waved when our eyes met and then he walked down to sit next to me, our legs hanging over the side of the dock.

“I thought you’d be angry with me. Or disappointed,” I told him.

“Not at all. I blame myself, if you want to know the truth. I kept forgetting you were only twelve and I put responsibilities and obligations on you and made you vulnerable to all sorts of issues and problems that would break a grown man. I just got so caught up in the beauty of the system and how groovy it was all working out.”

“What”—the words caught in my throat—“what happened to everyone? I’ve been worried about how I left things and if they could all find new jobs.”

“That’s what I came to tell you.” Arnold smiled. “I kept them all on for my business.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not the only one who benefited from the media exposure and financial success, you know.”

“Oh, sure.”

“I made the same investments with my money that I did with yours so that we had the same risk and, as it turned out, the identical rewards, too. I’ve
been drawing a commission from your stock and bond transactions in addition to the other consulting and investment work I’ve always done. Pasqual and the rest of the crew and Joey Pow and the office staff all invest with me. I’ve been conservative, in this market, but even so they’re not hurting for additional sources of income on top of salary and wages.”

“I’m glad to hear that things are working out.”

“I’m going to buy that building downtown. I’ll take up the top floor and I’ll rent two offices to Savannah and Lindy. And I’ll rent out the other two floors to an architecture firm and a graphic design company. A nice income from rent.”

“That’s wonderful. How’re Pasqual, Louis, Benny and the rest of the guys? I’ve been worrying about them now that fall is coming. No more lawn mowing.”

“PLB, Inc. PLB, of course, stands for Pasqual and Lawn Boy.” He smiled again when he saw my face light up. “The company is doing really well. Not only did the publicity increase the demand for their lawn services, but they’re going to expand into snowplowing in the winter months. They’ve
purchased their first two plows and have three more on order.”

“Ahh. It’s all taken care of….”

“Wait. There’s more: They insisted that you continue to collect your percentage on the business earnings. So you have remained a silent partner in the expanded operations. They believe it wouldn’t be right to go on without you. Every member of the team voted to keep you on and honor your efforts by adding your name to the company.”

“Wow. I had no idea. I don’t know what to say.”

“They’re good men. Hard workers. Loyal. They know about respect and honor and standing to with their friends.”

“How’s Joey?”

“Your grandmother hasn’t told you her news?”

I shook my head. Grandma had news? And had kept it to herself? Well, maybe she’d thought she told me when she started talking about how you trim a cat’s toenails.

“In the heat of the moment, I forgot to tell you that she had given me forty dollars to invest awhile back, and, well, luck with investments sure does run in your family. We’ve turned that modest
amount into quite a little nest egg. Nothing along the lines of what you’ve made, of course—that would be impossible. But enough so that she can have some fun.”

“What kind of fun?”

“Joey Pow kind of fun. She’s his new sponsor. And she hired Rock to take over as his manager. They arrange his bouts, set up his travel plans and work with his trainers to make sure he’s in top physical shape. She’s training too, in a modest way, and she’s gotten a new lease on life. Joey is very happy. Those two have a unique connection. They’re good for each other.”

“Yeah, I guess they are.”

“Oh, and speaking of Joey: He found out that you found out that Zed had threatened your grandmother. He was very upset that his sponsor had been worried and, suffice it to say, Zed’s threat has been terminated.”

“Just the threat, right? Joey didn’t, you know, actually … terminate … Zed?”

“There was some head pinching, and Zed won’t be able to eat solid foods for three to six weeks, but there isn’t any lasting physical damage. The psychological afteraffects might be permanent. Which
would be good. In the meantime, Joey hired Zed so he could supervise him like he did Rock, because he says it’s important to keep your friends close and your not-friends even closer.”

“Joey is brilliant. He’s good people, too.”

“How are you?” Arnold asked me. “Everything groovy up here for you and your folks?”

“This is the greatest place. I’m really glad my folks bought it.”

“That’s something I should explain. Because they have powers of attorney, your parents can withdraw from your accounts to provide adequate housing for you while you are a minor. So this cabin is yours, free and clear. They bought it for you.”

“I own the cabin?”

“And the entire lake.”

“I own a lake?”

“Yes, and a few acres surrounding the shoreline.”

“What about those little cabins on the other shore?”

“They’re part of the resort. Your resort.”

“I own a resort?”

“Yes, you do. A very small one. Turns out if we’d simply cashed out of the market and put the money in savings, we would have taken a tax hit that I
found unacceptable. Your parents agreed that reinvesting in property was the right thing. You didn’t lose money, but this kind of investment won’t add the same kind of pressure that the stock market put on you.”

“So … wait … I’m still making money from the lawn care business and now there’s going to be more money from the snowplow business
and
I own a resort?”

He nodded and smiled.

“And everybody’s job is safe?”

“Yes.”

“What about the audit and the frozen assets?”

“I told you that Lindy and Savannah were the best in the business. They made those problems disappear. We’d always kept impeccable books, and once the situation was laid out in full for the tax office, we were A-OK.”

“How about the guys who told Joey to throw the fight?”

“Remember the lawyers who wanted you to sue everyone?” I flinched and nodded. “Well, they’re filing injunctions right and left, tying all those guys up in red tape. Those guys are too busy to scheme. Plus, they’re in a world of trouble with the tax
people. It’s going to take them a lot of time and money, maybe some jail time, to resolve all these issues. The legal system can be, at times, groovy.”

“That’s cool.”

He pulled a small notebook out of his jacket pocket.

“You’ve always given me a free hand with your investments and trusted me to have your best interests at heart.”

“Of course.”

“I hope you’ll agree with the decisions I made on your behalf. I kept reinvesting the money; I’m a stockbroker and it goes against everything I stand for to drop out of the game when it’s going so well. Frankly, I can’t understand it, but no matter what happens elsewhere in this crazy market, your investments continue to do well.”

“Am I still rich?”

“Yup. And your parents and I set up a trust fund. You can’t touch it for any reason, not even to give it away, until you’re twenty-five. The money is safe and making interest for you. Plus, there’s the college fund. And your retirement plans. All immutable—that means you can’t change them. And untouchable.”

“So how much am I worth?”

He licked his finger and paged through the small notebook he held.

“Well, remember we started out with a forty-dollar investment? And that morphed into eight thousand dollars?”

“And change, yes. But that was gross and not net.”

He smiled because I’d been paying attention and remembered what he’d taught me. “And then the eight became sixteen and we reinvested it in a high-risk stock that went crazy?”

“And that’s when the investments grew to about fifty thousand dollars plus the eight I’d made from the lawns.”

“And change,” we both said.

“Then, of course, that sell order didn’t go through and there was a merger and so you were, at that point, worth something in the neighborhood of four hundred and eighty thousand dollars.”

“And change,” we said together.

“Right.”

“Well, since I continued investing half of that amount, a conservative estimate, including partial ownership of the expanded lawn service, your investments, the property and your grandmother’s earnings from stocks and Joey, which she funnelled
back into your trust rather than keeping it herself, you’ve cracked the million-dollar ceiling.”

“And change.”

“Sure. There’s always change.”

And change, I thought, looking out across a lake I owned, is always good.

Gary Paulsen is the distinguished author of many critically acclaimed books for young people, including three Newbery Honor books:
The Winter Room, Hatchet
, and
Dogsong
. His novel
The Haymeadow
received the Western Writers of America Golden Spur Award. Among his Random House books are
Woods Runner; Notes from the Dog; Mudshark; Lawn Boy; The Legend of Bass Reeves; The Amazing Life of Birds; The Time Hackers; Molly McGinty Has a Really Good Day; The Quilt
(a companion to
Alida’s Song
and
The Cook-camp
)
; The Glass Café; How Angel Peterson Got His Name; Guts: The True Stories Behind
Hatchet
and the Brian Books; The Beet Fields; Soldier’s Heart; Brian’s Return, Brian’s Winter
, and
Brian’s Hunt
(companions to
Hatchet
)
; Father Water, Mother Woods;
and five books about Francis Tucket’s adventures in the Old West. Gary Paulsen has also published fiction and nonfiction for adults, as well as picture books illustrated by his wife, the painter Ruth Wright Paulsen. Their most recent book is
Canoe Days
. The Paulsens live in Alaska, in New Mexico, and on the Pacific Ocean.

You can visit Gary Paulsen on the Web at
www.garypaulsen.com
.